One hundred years ago last night, a young man barely out of high school went to work at the Corning, NY Western Union Telegraph Company - a night job he was able to obtain as a teletype operator. Close to midnight, messages from the east coast of Canada started to come into the office - messages that the Titanic had hit an iceberg and was sinking. Throughout the night and early morning, that young man tranlasted the dits and dots onto ticker tape. Understanding the full significance of what he was placing onto the tapes, he had the foresight to keep the tapes. That young man was my grandfather. And the tapes? They are in the possession of my sister whom, being the oldest grandchild, he gave the tapes to. Knowing that the tapes were being generated as the tragedy took place, the feeling one gets while holding them is completely different than just reading about the event.

We were fortunate enough to go an exhibit on the Titanic awhile back and I bought a copy of the blueprints of the ship.My intention was to frame them for the boys' room. I didn't realize, though, that it would cost a fortune to framebecause it is so long. So... two years later, it is still on a shelf in their closet.

I hope you didn't get too wet <G>. Seriously though, that would have been a great exhibit to attend and there must have been a lot of historical items on hand and information to be had.

I once saw a documantary on people who had serious collecting habits. One was a Titanic fan (or should I say 'fanatic'?) and he had to have everything that was "Titanic". He was so obsessed that it destroyed his marriage (true story)

I have three postcards in total with the Titanic, one being a reproduction and the other two genuine from the time frame. I got them relatively cheap but once Cameron's film came out, they sky rocketed more than 15 times the price I paid for them.

The one shown in this thread is an original. I also scanned another postcard image in here on the way I mount my album pages, and that too is an original. You can see it here:

Cost to build the Titanic (in 1912): $7,500,000.00Cost to make Titanic, the movie (1997): $200,000,000.00

Price of single first-class passage: $4,700Price of single first-class passage in today's dollars: $50,000

Speed of Carpathia as it entered ice field to reach survivors: 9 knotsSpeed of Titanic through same ice field when it struck iceberg: 22 1/2 knots

During the filming of a TITANIC movie: A Night to Remember (1958), Lawrence Beesley, who had survived the Titanic disaster, was hired as a consultant. Watching the production, Beesley decided that he wanted his chance to be among the passengers who did not survive. Unfortunately, he was not a member of the actors' union. So he forged a pass, boarded the "Titanic," and stood with the extras who were preparing to "die." But "right at the last minute, as the cameras were due to roll, the director spotted [him] . . . Picking up his megaphone, he instructed the amateur impostor kindly to disembark." Beesley had missed his chance to explore "an alternative version of history."

I know that the US did not issue a stamp remembering the Titanic disaster for the reason that disasters are not commemorated.

However, this is not exactly true. In the 1990s a stamp was issued which remembered the movie Titanic with the word Titanic in large letters and an image of the ship. This is really splitting hairs in my opinion--almost a distinction without a difference.

Also in the 1940s the Four Chaplains issue showed a sinking ship and the images of the four chaplains hovering above the sinking ship. If this is not remembering a disaster then I don't know what is.

There are other examples, too. The stamp issued after the Kennedy assassination comes to mind. That certainly remembered a tragedy.

There are a lot of those "border" stamps that don't fall within the guidelines we recognize for "not commemorating a disaster". After all, the real question is what is a disaster?

We have issued stamps for President Harding as a memorial after his assassination. There have also been stamps for Lincoln's "memorial issue".

More recently, we have issued stamps commemorating wars, such as the Revolutionary War, the "Remember the Maine" issue, the War of 1812 (a new issue coming in 2012), the World War II memorial issues, and many for the Civil War (including those coming in 2012).

As for other disasters, let's not forget the Semi-Postal stamp "Heroes" issued after the 9/11 disaster. I know the USPS was careful to title the stamp so as not to "glorify a tragedy" but the image still shows the ruins of the WTC, so it still "bent the rules", so to speak.

Fast forward to 2012 and the USPS has changed or bent so many rules regarding the issuance of stamps (i.e. releases before the announced first day of issue, the announcement that living people may be depicted on stamps, etc.) that it really isn't so much of an issue as it once was.

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